What are you playing?

No
Obviously you never played Steel Battalion. You had to buy this $200 controller in order to play the game properly. The pedals are part of the controller.

No, I didn’t. Saw it though. They set it up at our arcade and made a cabinet for it.
 
The more recent one tried to get around the 200 controller by making you use a Kinect instead... except the Kinect is garbage so it doesn't work.
 
Obviously you never played Steel Battalion. You had to buy this $200 controller in order to play the game properly. The pedals are part of the controller.

A sound investment, since those are worth much more than $200 now.

Also, see that eject button? If you didn't hit that before your mech blew up, it would erase your save.
 
Julie has been marathoning the Mass Effect trilogy. She started 3 last night, and I know the game is six years old now and we've said all this before, but the drop in quality is striking. Not just story flubs about how the Reaper eradicated the Protheans by divide and conquer, versus being EVERYWHERE, or the crap with the Crucible. It's gameplay stuff, like enemy horde laziness, and how fewer lines of Shepard's are chosen by the player. We had to go to my old PSN account to download the From Ashes DLC that should've come with this game already. What a shit show.
 
So... goddamn God of War is good. It's mesmerizing to me just how good it is. I expected nothing from it, it was a series I liked but had run its course. This reinvents the game while keeping the spirit, changes everything, wraps it up in a big package of amazing, and then layers on an incredibly personal and moving story to boot. All without any DLC or loot boxes.
 
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Also, to anyone that picks up GoW, I highly recommend playing on hard. It is fucking hard, you'll die a whole lot to start out with, but it will force you to learn the combat system and become one with the matrix.
 
Mass Effect 3 - There are genuinely good dialogue moments, so it's not like all the writers were asleep at the wheel. One of my favorite bits is the discussion of whether EDI is the Normandy or just piloting the Normandy. There isn't really a clear answer, but it's fun sci-fi stuff when they can have this discussion about an AI that also involves the AI, since she's listening.

And then later we cut to the Deus Ex Machina being built and the lazy "woo-hoo victory eventually" music reminds me of the "Godzilla slowly approaches the movie" themes from Godzilla vs Gigan or Godzilla vs Megalon.
 
Mass Effect 3 - There are genuinely good dialogue moments, so it's not like all the writers were asleep at the wheel. One of my favorite bits is the discussion of whether EDI is the Normandy or just piloting the Normandy. There isn't really a clear answer, but it's fun sci-fi stuff when they can have this discussion about an AI that also involves the AI, since she's listening.

And then later we cut to the Deus Ex Machina being built and the lazy "woo-hoo victory eventually" music reminds me of the "Godzilla slowly approaches the movie" themes from Godzilla vs Gigan or Godzilla vs Megalon.
There is one genuinely amazing moment in that game, and it's Mordin.
 

Dave

Staff member
I can't fucking STAND it when you have an extended fight and then the bad guy suddenly goes, "Hey look! I'm all healed!" Now you have to hit me another hundred times or so."
 

Dave

Staff member
And this fucking guy does it twice. This doesn't make me want to play the game, it makes me want to give it a hard pass.
 
I can't fucking STAND it when you have an extended fight and then the bad guy suddenly goes, "Hey look! I'm all healed!" Now you have to hit me another hundred times or so."
Well, you could optionally look at it like the kind of video game where the bad guy is defeated and comes back later in the game (perhaps powered up). Or you could look at the enemy's health bar as simply a goal bar to the next cut scene. Neither of those are terribly satisfying, though. I don't know how you get the fake-out moment (a story moment that you might want, arguably!) without having the health bar drop to zero, though.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
IMO boss/enemy health bars don't belong in games any more. They're a relic from the age of 2d sprites and 16 bit architecture. If you can't visually communicate damage through texture and mesh, these days, you better be making a REALLY retro indie game, like FTL or Hotline Miami.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
And this fucking guy does it twice. This doesn't make me want to play the game, it makes me want to give it a hard pass.
At least Kratos gets healed up at the same time. Nothing like a boss who can completely regenerate his health, while leaving you at a sliver.
 
I can't fucking STAND it when you have an extended fight and then the bad guy suddenly goes, "Hey look! I'm all healed!" Now you have to hit me another hundred times or so."
At least Kratos gets healed up at the same time. Nothing like a boss who can completely regenerate his health, while leaving you at a sliver.
Video game rules:
"What? You could've healed yourself up to full health at any time?"
"No, not at any time. Only when it was...dramatic."

See what you started, Super Metroid???

--Patrick
 
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I hate that as well typically, however, there is a very lore grounded reason for him being able to do that and I ended up okay with it in this case.
 

Dave

Staff member
Well, you could optionally look at it like the kind of video game where the bad guy is defeated and comes back later in the game (perhaps powered up). Or you could look at the enemy's health bar as simply a goal bar to the next cut scene. Neither of those are terribly satisfying, though. I don't know how you get the fake-out moment (a story moment that you might want, arguably!) without having the health bar drop to zero, though.
Why not make that part of the health bar be at 1/3? At least that would make sense. And I hope this game isn't unskippable cutscene hell like Far Cry 5.
 
Why not make that part of the health bar be at 1/3? At least that would make sense. And I hope this game isn't unskippable cutscene hell like Far Cry 5.
Because you don't know who he is. And I'll not reveal who he is (though if you know Norse mythology it's not that hard to figure out.) The health bar is Kratos's knowledge of how close to death he is, but he knows nothing about this guy, who reveals to him, very dramatically, that he can heal himself from any damage and is quite literally unkillable.

Kratos refilling his health is also story-based. He's a god, but has given up his godhood. The fight with the stranger is making him dig into old powers he hasn't touched in years.
 
I got PS Plus so I could try the Monster Hunter group dragon siege and then I got so busy getting ready for the art show that I never got to do it.

Boo :(
 
I went in solo a few times, but I didn't do it in a group. I haven't really played since we played.

I was a bit of a hot mess and left all of my drawing until the last few weeks before the show and I committed to a fair amount of work for that short amount of time.
 
I went in solo a few times, but I didn't do it in a group. I haven't really played since we played.

I was a bit of a hot mess and left all of my drawing until the last few weeks before the show and I committed to a fair amount of work for that short amount of time.
I don't know how much you really missed. I only played it one evening, but it didn't stay lively. I'm sorry you didn't get to join a big group for it, though.
 
I don't know how much you really missed. I only played it one evening, but it didn't stay lively. I'm sorry you didn't get to join a big group for it, though.
Thanks :)

It's my own fault. I think its funny that I got the membership and then haven't been on to use it. I'm still sour with my son for activating a free two day one a few years ago that prevented me from ever getting a free one again. Especially because there was a free 14 day one available a few weeks ago.
 
So, Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire. Fucking awesome CRPG. Wonderful. I love it. It's such a step up over the OG Pillars in just about every way.

Now, here's my minor, but constantly annoying gripe. There are almost no new character portraits other than backer portraits and if I wanted my characters to look like overweight white guys with beards, well, I'd be in the money. Some races don't even have any portraits that match their character models at all. Most of the Godlikes for example. It's fucking annoying that there are like 1100 elf portraits (though half of them are round faced chubby guys who had enough money to take resources away from useful character portraits) and like 2 Orlan or Aumaua portraits. Orlan and Aumaua are unique to the Pillars franchise. Any jagoff can download their favourite art for elves for their own elf portrait but there's nothing out there that look like Orlan and Aumaua or the Godlikes.

Look at these. No one but their backers would EVER use them.



I can't find these separately, so here's a whack of portraits. You KNOW which ones I'm referring to.



Shittiest part is now if you want to use custom portraits, the game has a water coloured version of the portrait used in conversations so you have to go through the effort of trying to photoshop your custom portraits the same Obsidian artists did to make it fit into the game. So you're stuck with your average D&D group of dudes looking portraits or a pain in the ass of effort.
 
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So, Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire. Fucking awesome CRPG. Wonderful. I love it. It's such a step up over the OG Pillars in just about every way.

Now, here's my minor, but constantly annoying gripe. There are almost no new character portraits other than backer portraits and if I wanted my characters to look like overweight white guys with beards, well, I'd be in the money. Some races don't even have any portraits that match their character models at all. Most of the Godlikes for example. It's fucking annoying that there are like 1100 elf portraits (though half of them are round faced chubby guys who had enough money to take resources away from useful character portraits) and like 2 Orlan or Aumaua portraits. Orlan and Aumaua are unique to the Pillars franchise. Any jagoff can download their favourite art for elves for their own elf portrait but there's nothing out there that look like Orlan and Aumaua or the Godlikes.

Look at these. No one but their backers would EVER use them.



I can't find these separately, so here's a whack of portraits. You KNOW which ones I'm referring to.



Shittiest part is now if you want to use custom portraits, the game has a water coloured version of the portrait used in conversations so you have to go through the effort of trying to photoshop your custom portraits the same Obsidian artists did to make it fit into the game. So you're stuck with your average D&D group of dudes looking portraits or a pain in the ass of effort.
I never did finish POE 1. Is this a situation where you need to play through the entirely of the first game to understand what the crap is going on in the 2nd?
 
I never did finish POE 1. Is this a situation where you need to play through the entirely of the first game to understand what the crap is going on in the 2nd?
It does play heavily into what happened in the third act of PoE 1. But a quick read of a wikipedia or something like that could bring you up to speed.
 
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